The 4S check
Where is your business with AI?
The 4S check: four stages, eight yes-or-no questions, about two minutes. It shows where you are on one piece of work, and the one step that moves you forward.
Four stages
Strategy, Solution, Scale, Sustain
Each stage answers one question, and each depends on the one before.
Strategy
You're here if: People use AI tools on their own, but nobody has picked one piece of work for AI to take on, or nobody owns it. There's no number for what better would look like.
What helps next: Choose one workflow, one owner and one number. A free discovery session does that with you; a discovery sprint then tests it on your own documents.
How the Discovery Sprint works →Solution
You're here if: You've chosen the work and maybe tried a tool, a trial or an automation. It hasn't been tested on your real documents, or nobody compared the result with how the work is done today.
What helps next: Test it on your real work and measure it against today. That's what the discovery sprint is for: a working prototype, measured results and a clear go/no-go.
How the Discovery Sprint works →Scale
You're here if: It works and you've measured it, but it's still a side experiment: one keen person uses it, or someone copies the results into your systems by hand.
What helps next: Connect it to the system where the work ends up, and roll it out to the people who do the work.
See AI Development →Sustain
You're here if: It's in daily use and connected. What's missing is an owner: someone who fixes and updates it when things change, checks what it produces, and keeps clear rules on what it may do alone.
What helps next: Give it an owner and a schedule: regular checks, fixes and updates, with people approving what matters.
See AI Employee →Why the order matters
A tool bought before anyone chose the work. A pilot nobody measured. An automation that one person set up and nobody looks after. Each is a skipped stage, and a skipped stage is where AI projects stall.
So the check looks for the first gap, not the most advanced thing you've tried. Close that gap and the next stage gets much easier.
Take the check
Pick one piece of work.
Think of the work you'd most like AI to help with. Tick each statement that's true for it today. If it's only partly true, leave it unticked.
You ticked a later statement but not an earlier one. That usually means a stage was skipped, and it's the first thing to fix.
Your stage
S1 Strategy
People use AI tools on their own, but nobody has picked one piece of work for AI to take on, or nobody owns it. There's no number for what better would look like.
What helps next: Choose one workflow, one owner and one number. A free discovery session does that with you; a discovery sprint then tests it on your own documents.
Your stage
S2 Solution
You've chosen the work and maybe tried a tool, a trial or an automation. It hasn't been tested on your real documents, or nobody compared the result with how the work is done today.
What helps next: Test it on your real work and measure it against today. That's what the discovery sprint is for: a working prototype, measured results and a clear go/no-go.
Your stage
S3 Scale
It works and you've measured it, but it's still a side experiment: one keen person uses it, or someone copies the results into your systems by hand.
What helps next: Connect it to the system where the work ends up, and roll it out to the people who do the work.
Your stage
S4 Sustain
It's in daily use and connected. What's missing is an owner: someone who fixes and updates it when things change, checks what it produces, and keeps clear rules on what it may do alone.
What helps next: Give it an owner and a schedule: regular checks, fixes and updates, with people approving what matters.
Your stage
Past stage four
That workflow is in good shape: chosen, measured, part of the day, and looked after.
What helps next: The useful question now is which workflow comes next (it starts again at Strategy), or whether you need more building capacity than your team has.
Questions
Is this an AI maturity assessment?
It's a quick self-check, not an audit. Eight yes-or-no questions place one piece of work at one of four stages, so you know which step comes next.
Why one workflow and not the whole company?
Because businesses are rarely at one stage everywhere. You can run invoicing smoothly with AI and still be deciding where to start on everything else. Start with the work that matters most.
What happens to my answers?
We don't store them. Our analytics counts which stage people land on, without anything that identifies you. If you book a session, we'll go through the same questions together.
What if we're past stage four?
Then that workflow is in good shape, and we'll say so. The useful question becomes which workflow is next.
Not sure where to start?
Book a free discovery session. We'll look at your work together and tell you plainly where AI would help — and where it wouldn't.